JRS Report: “Unprecedented displacement” in 2017

The displacement of populations around the world reached unprecedented levels in 2017, according to the recently published Annual Report of the Jesuit Refugee Service. The year 2017, the report claims, was a year of “massive humanitarian need caused by the highest levels of forced displacement ever recorded”.

According to the Annual Report, children accounted for “half of those on the move”. In its effort to respond to this, the JRS, “building on centuries of Jesuit expertise in the field of education”, has made the teaching of refugees a priority. More than 180,000 refugees benefited from their educational programmes in 2017, 30,000 more than in 2016. And critical in the development of these programmes has been the JRS’s concentration on teacher training among the refugees themselves.

Overall in 2017 the JRS managed to serve more than 630,000 people throughout the 52 countries in which they operate. The report notes, however, that the total number of forcibly displaced people throughout the world last year exceeded 68 million. Read the full report here »